Hauge was born at the village of Ulvik in Hordaland, Norway. His parents Håkon Hauge (1877-1954) and Katrina Hakestad (1873-1975) were farmers.
Hauge attended middle school in Ulvik 1925–1926. He learned English and German in school and later taught himself French by reading. He spent many years training in horticulture and fruit cultivation.
He went to Hjeltnes Horticulture School (Hjeltnes videregående skole) in Ulvik (1927 and 1933–34), Norwegian University of Life Sciences at Ås (1930) and the State Research Center (Statens forsøksgardt) at Hermannsverk in Sogn og Fjordane (1931-1933). He lived his whole life in Ulvik working as a gardener in his own apple orchard.[2]
Hauge's first poems were published in 1946, all in a traditional form. He later wrote modernist poetry and in particular concrete poetry that inspired other, younger Norwegian poets, such as Jan Erik Vold. A well-known example, in the Norwegian original:
Hauge has been translated to English by the Scottish poet Robin Fulton in Olav Hauge: Selected Poems, from 1990, and by the American poet Robert Bly in Trusting Your Life to Water and Eternity: Twenty Poems of Olav H. Hauge, from 1987. The American authorRobert Hedin translated Hauge in 2001 in the collection The Bullfinch Rising from the Cherry Tree: Poems of Olav H. Hauge and in Leaf-huts and Snow-houses in 2004. Robert Bly and Robert Hedin together translated Hauge in 2008 in The Dream We Carry: Selected and Last Poems of Olav H. Hauge. Words from Glor i oska were used as lyrics for the Solefald song "Song til stormen" off of their 2010 album, Norrøn Livskunst.
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Olav H. Hauge Center (Olav H. Hauge - Senteret) is situated on Brakanes near Ulvikafjorden. The center includes an exhibition, library of poetry, poetry workshop and museum highlighting the poet's life and work. Nynorsk kultursentrum manages both the Olav H. Hauge Centre and the Ivar Aasen-instituttet in Ørsta.[4][5][6]
Olav Hauge translated by Olav Grinde (2016) Luminous Spaces: Olav H. Hauge: Selected Poems & Journals (White Pine Press) ISBN978-1935210801
Olav Hauge translated by Robert Bly and Robert Hedin (2008) The Dream We Carry: Selected and Last Poems of Olav Hauge (Copper Canyon Press) ISBN978-1556592881
Olav Hauge translated by Robin Fulton (1990) Olav Hauge: Selected Poems (White Pine Press) ISBN978-1877727030
Olav Hauge translated by Robert Bly (1987) Trusting Your Life to Water and Eternity: Twenty Poems of Olav H. Hauge (Milkweed Editions) ISBN978-0915943289
Olav Hauge translated by Sabina Messeg and Hannah May Svnedal 2010, Elvi Burtanum Fjorden, הנהר שמעבר לפיורד, Carmel publishing house, ISBN978-965-540-653-5